Editing Mohicans (section)

==Culture==
The Mohican villages were governed by hereditary [[sachem]]s advised by a council of clan elders. They had a [[Matrilineality|matrilineal kinship system]], with property and inheritance (including such hereditary offices) passed through the maternal line. Moravian missionary [[John Heckewelder]] and early anthropologist [[Lewis H. Morgan]] both learned from Mohican informants that their matrilineal society was divided into three [[phratries]] (Turkey, Turtle, and Wolf). These were divided into clans or subclans, including a potentially prominent Bear Clan. This finding is supported by the evidence of Mohican signatures on treaties and land deeds (see the works of [[Shirley Dunn]]).

A general council of sachems met regularly at [[Schodack, New York|Scodac]] (east of present-day Albany) to decide important matters affecting the entire confederacy.<ref name=sultzman/> In his history of the Indians of the Hudson River, [[Edward Manning Ruttenber]] described the [[clan]]s of the Mohican as the Bear, the Turkey, the Turtle, and the Wolf. Each had a role in the lives of the people, and the Wolf served as warriors in the north to defend against the [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]], the easternmost of the Five Nations of the Iroquois.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

Like the Munsee-speaking communities to their south, Mohican villages followed a dispersed settlement pattern, with each community likely dominated by a single lineage or clan. The villages usually consisted of a small cluster of small and mid-sized [[longhouse]]s, and were located along floodplains. During times of war, they built fortifications in defensive locations (such as along ridges) as places of retreat. Their cornfields were located near their communities; the women also cultivated varieties of squash, beans, sunflowers, and other crops from the [[Eastern Agricultural Complex]]. Horticulture and the gathering and processing of nuts (hickory, butternuts, black walnuts and acorns), fruits (blueberries, raspberries, [[Amelanchier|juneberries]] among many others), and roots (groundnuts, wood lilies, arrowroot among others) provided much of their diet. This was supplemented by the men hunting game (turkeys, deer, elk, bears, and moose in the Taconics) and fishing ([[sturgeon]], [[alewives]], [[shad]], eels, [[lamprey]] and [[striped bass]]).